TFTD Fanfic Discussion

[The Veteran]

The way the aliens train isn't the same as the way our guys do. They don't know one minute and they do the next. Remember that these creatures are mentally concentrated evolutions, their mutations gave complete disregard to physical abilities. Haven't you ever thought those heavy plasmas looked a bit heavy for those wussy sectoid stick arms

 

Point is they don't really bother with target practice or anything similar, they don't even have psionic training really, they just have what they're given and that's it. The aliens are cannon fodder, not commandos. Yes I agree that's what XCom is but we can't have everyone being Warlordesque characters or where's the margin of error? People would die in incredibly boring ways, if you follow my meaning... They'd be able to dodge a lot of weapons fire, they'd evade grenades and use cover particularly well.

 

If you have those kinds of skills then fighting a mass-produced genetically engineered army becomes rather too easy for entertainment sake. These alien soldiers are rather poor, especially by commando standards, that's why there are so damn many of them! With the same stroke of the brush, XCom are similarly not all they should be as far as realism goes. A real life, alien fighting organisation would weed out everyone but the best of the best, men in black style...

 

We have to take everything with a pinch of salt, but we are trying to be realistic and we have to follow the game. That comes before everything else, its what the fics are all about. It's a fine balance, game wise you can walk off a roof, float down two stories and be fine, realism wise you break your legs... Fic wise, you walk off a rook and 1, you're an idiot, 2, you're in great pain, and 3, you're out of action for the mission with severe bruising and maybe a small fracture...

 

It's all relative, we have to be very careful how literally we take things, even when we talk in here we have to make sure we understand each other or things can get a bit messy sometimes! Enough of that though, I've posted it someone elses turn

[Accounting Troll]

Don't worry Vet, I'm not going anywhere exciting. There's some other stuff I'm planning on doing, like finishing off those dratted UFO: Aftermath weapon reviews.

 

Lets be careful not to be too graphic with the Commodore's love interest though. I don't want to write THAT sort of story

[The Veteran]

Yeah it's defonotely nt that sort of fic

[uriaheep]

Wow! I've only been away a week and so much has happened.

 

The love aspect seems like a sub plot in a Holliwood movie, put there to bolster an otherwise crappy storyline. We have a good storyline so we don't need it bolstering do we?

 

There are lots of options for sub plots but if we get too involved with them the fic could go off at a tangent.

 

We need them to maybe bring in another character or explain something happening in another part of the world but we really need to stay with the main storyline so things keep moving on.

[The Veteran]

Absolutely, very little of what we talk about in here has any direct bearing on the actual fic just yet. They're simply ideas for the future as character development could very easily see a few bonds and relationships developing. It adds humanity to the story and makes things a little more believable...

 

But yes, in the meantime, go post in the fic

[Accounting Troll]

Glad to see a nice friendly meeting between the new soldiers and the mechs 'n' techs If the commodore finds out about the little confrontration they wll have a chance to resolve their differences as they scrape barnacles from the hull of the Triton

[uriaheep]

Well, after talking about sub-plots I thought I better make room for a few.

[The Veteran]

Yeah I love it, its a really good post. Bit of development, bit of character introduction and in the next few posts we'll see what Nielsen really thinks about it all. Personaly I imagine he'll have found the whole episode rather ammusing as his boys stood their ground but also very unprofessional as this will reflect on him. I don't think he's the hard arse sort of guy though... I think he'll go fairly soft on them though, be more of a mate than an CO. Kind of the character Genega played. Him and the Commodore can play good cop bad cop

[uriaheep]

That's right, I see Neilsen as having an empathy with the team as he has seen them die and be victorious.

 

There is a great deal of scope within the relationship between the two teams, that's if the 'Boss' keeps two teams.

 

The next few posts could be really important.

[The Veteran]

I think we'll see the two teams merge now for the next few posts. We may have had some new recruits in but we still don't have enough to make two fukll suads. I reckon everyone will get thrown in together for a mission or maybe two until we get some more troops in to allow a day shift and a night shift. Ideally 3 shifts is good, work it like we do in the UFO fic. After all it won them the last war!!!

For anyone unfamiliar the way we worked in for UFO was that our three squads would each stay on active duty until they had flown a mission. That way it was fair on everyone allowing a natural rota to occur. Teams on duty would still eat sleep play and train as they would do normally but they would wake for longer working days and from the second they were up they were kitted out ready to go. If they were asleep, they got woken up...

 

We're down to two squads in UFO now but I'm already finding that this makes it harder to take a decent and realistic amount of casualties. We've lost one man on aterror mission and thats all we can lose now...

[Dumb_Commander]

Okay, Gasvin dies in a terror mission from a direct shot.

[The Veteran]

Whoa easy DC don't give the plot away I'm talking about the UFO fic just there, I'm just making a point. We will need more filler at some point.

You do with Gasvin as you wish though, you have a couple other guys too

[Dumb_Commander]

Yeah, but that will be a little long waiting, so

 

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I was thinking that the Barracuda pillot will engage against a alien cruiser (Vet's USOpedia. In reality just a scout), gets some damage, but shoots down the bugger with couple of Ajax torpeedos.

[The Veteran]

for anyone who's unsure The Cruiser is the Small USO that looks kinda like a member

 

We need someone else to post though! These fics have all stopped recently... Before we go on any more missaions we need to carry on with the character integration, do the training day and form the new squads. AT where are you?

[Accounting Troll]

Okay, I'll see if I can put something together in the next few days...

[The Veteran]

Good man, I knew a personalised request would show some results I'll post soon but I don't want to monopolise the fanfic too much!!

[uriaheep]

Yeah, I can't really go until someone else has posted.

[Accounting Troll]

Sorry it's been a little while, but I should have something ready for tommmorow evening.

[The Veteran]

Sounds good AT, look forward to reading it

[Accounting Troll]

Done.

 

The profile of Jake Gaston has a section on liquid breathing technology; the technology currently exists, but it is too impractical and nobody needs it enough to spend the money on sorting out the problems. Liquid breathing is the only possible way the aquanauts can conduct a mission against a USO touched down in the deeps, so I've introduced it in my section. Armoured diving suits already exist, but they are going to be too bulky for USO interiors until we get aquaplastics.

 

With the aquanauts gone for the day, the scientists are using the vacant subpen to conduct a demonstration of gauss technology for the commodore, so there are two things going on at one here. Most great scientists do their truly groundbreaking work when they are young and then spend the rest of their careers building on their early discoveries, so the commodore probably suspects that Zager is trading on past glories. A successful weapons test would be important for him as it would prove to her how much of an asset to X-Com he still is.

[The Veteran]

I'm finding it really hard to write long posts for this fic. We need more character development and lots of it fast!!!! We need names, faces and profiles for these new recruits. We need much more info on pretty much everything that's going on or it just becomes so hard to write!

[uriaheep]

True, I'll have a go at that this weekend. GREAT posts chaps, it's really coming together.

[Accounting Troll]

I wouldn't worry about going into too much depth for the character profiles for the new recruits as most of them are going to be killed off pretty fast.

 

I put in a couple of references to an insurgency among the Quebecois. Many French Canadians want Quebec to break away from Canada, so I doubt thy would be thrilled at the thought of a union between Canada and the USA in the 2020s or 30s. I was thinking about some of the Quebecois conducting a terrorist campaign in an attempt to gain independence, much like the IRA and Basque seperatists. The only effect this would have on the story is the occasional background reference, such as a soldier having gained experience in operations against the insurgents before joining X-Com.

[uriaheep]

Sorry it's taken so long. (busy)

 

I've tried to put some flesh on the recruits but as AT says they may not last long. Still the human side works better if someone you know gets jellied rather than an autonomous nobody.

 

I wrote about 8 characters in and then after checking back realised that it was stated that 5 recruits were coming. I think the reference post needs updating with everything Vet, not just character names. I've a poor memory anyway but in this heat?

[The Veteran]

Ugh tell me about it :s I just had to walk up through town with four bags of ice because its too hot for my machine to make its own! It wasn't easy staying in the shadows all the way back I can tell you

 

I'll check out your post, maybe post myself and I'll try to update the quick ref. soon.